


Agreeable Perfidy

by TurtleNovas



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst, Coping, Gen, Season 1 & 2 canon compliant, family illness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-27
Updated: 2018-06-27
Packaged: 2019-05-29 09:07:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15069854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TurtleNovas/pseuds/TurtleNovas
Summary: Dustin is exceptionally good at lying.  Except when he's not.





	Agreeable Perfidy

Dustin is exceptionally good at lying. It’s a tool he uses often and with ease, having practiced to the point of expertise over the years. He lies to make people feel better, to make things more convenient, to protect people, to get what he wants, to stay out of trouble, and sometimes even just for fun, to see if he can get away with it.

It started with his mom, when he was a little kid, and learned that he could stop her from being sad sometimes, if only he stretched his words into just the right shape. He learned that he could keep her laughing, could watch all the stress of her day melt away if he just _didn’t_ tell her about how much trouble he got in at school today. He learned that, as much as she would say, “ _It’s okay, Dusty. Mommy will always love you,_ ” she would still go to bed sad and tired when he told the truth; would still send him off to school the next morning with a weary, battered, “ _Be good, pumpkin_.” He learned early on that sometimes, if you want to protect someone’s smile, it’s better just to tell a little lie and clean up your messes on your own.

It’s a lesson that has served him well, and he knows with absolute certainty that his mom’s life has been better for it.

Lying to everyone else is a natural extension of lying to his mom. It becomes easy, over time, to let half truths and falsehoods roll off his tongue on instinct, and it gets him and his friends out of a lot of tight spots. It gets them into a lot of good spots, too. Hell, it gets him his friends in the first place, in a way, when he smiles, and lets himself be teased for doing ridiculous things, as if he doesn’t feel any sting; as if his skin is just that thick and all he wants to be is the clown of the group; as if, in reality, he isn’t terrified that he won’t be able to find another group if he can’t work his way into this one, despite being several years behind schedule in meeting them.

Later, the lies get him into a few spots of trouble with them, but that situation is so fucked all around, he’s willing to let himself believe the lies have little to do with the tension between them in the months after it all happens. Eventually, it blows over, and he manages to patch things up with a few more lies, taking all the blame, and pretending to be fine, if only they can just be normal again. It’s easy like breathing, or eating, or any other thing he does to maintain basic function in his life.

Lying to everyone is easy, because that’s how he keeps everyone happy.

Except lying to Steve is _hard_ , because Dustin looks at Steve and remembers all the ways in which people he loved hurt him by lying. And because Steve looks at him, and his eyes are soft, and honest, and compassionate, and somehow, Steve _sees_ him, and it feels like maybe Dustin doesn’t need to lie to protect Steve. In fact, it kind of feels like Dustin needs to tell Steve the truth to keep him in one piece.

So Dustin lies to everyone but Steve.

When his mom gets sick, things are no different.

Only, that’s a lie, because things are a little bit different, in that, now, he lies even more. He wakes up in the morning and before he can let himself think, he breathes a lie into the pale square of sunlight on his pillow. He answers calls, and greets visitors, and goes to doctors’ appointments, and chats with nurses and home care providers, and sits in waiting rooms, and stops to talk in the aisles at the grocery store, and with every breath he lies and lies and lies, because he knows. He knows if he doesn’t do it, no one will, and someone, he thinks, has to be the one to say, “It’s going to be okay.”

When he’s alone, and his body starts to ache, as if suddenly the pull of gravity has become just fractionally stronger than before and his muscles might be tearing from the extra exertion, he lies again. He takes a deep breath, ignoring the searing burn of the air in his lungs, and the hot sheen of truth in his eyes, and he says, angry and hard, “There’s nothing to worry about. She’s going to be fine.” He slams a fist into the wall, hard enough that he feels it dagger sharp and agonizing all the way in his shoulder, and focuses on that instead of the niggling thought in the back of his mind that he refuses to let himself think.

When Steve, after months of increasingly desperate and obvious efforts, finally manages to get Dustin alone in a room for more than a few minutes, Dustin feels the weight of it like the crushing force of a thousand natural disasters all coming to bear at once. He looks at Steve, and the compulsion to tell the truth is like a fistful of angry scorpions in his gut, the nausea a sharp and deadly storm of agony strong enough that he has to collapse back into the couch or he’s worried he might actually pass out. Steve sits next to him carefully, his face held painstakingly neutral, but his eyes are so soft and obvious it makes Dustin want to cover them with his hands, to keep them from ever seeing anything horrible again.  Because Steve is made up of everything good and pure and sweet, and Dustin knows things are about to get really ugly in here. He feels his throat seizing up and has to swallow hard to avoid gagging on nothing.

“Dusty,” Steve says, and it comes out like a shard of glass pressed into his vein, flaying himself open and waiting for Dustin to just _drink_ , because Steve is the only one who can see that Dustin is in _need_.

It starts out as more of a noise than anything else, choked off and animal, trapped under his ribs where he’s been keeping it for months and months, ever since his mom sat him down and told him her diagnosis. He swallows hard, tries to force his throat open around the words he hasn’t even let himself think, for fear that he might make them come true, ends up just having to swallow again as his eyes begin to get a little hot. He clenches his fingers in the sofa cushion, hard enough that he feels an ache in his bones, and he watches, relieved as Steve moves to cover his hands with his own.

The warmth is a shock, a sudden alert to just how cold his extremities have gone while he struggles, and he feels another blunt, savage noise tear its way out from under his sternum in response. Steve doesn’t let go, just curls his fingers softly around Dustin’s wrists and continues to look at him, persistent and brutal in his compassion.

Dustin feels tears on his cheeks before he even realizes his vision is swimming, and suddenly, his lungs feel loose and useless, like an overstretched rubber band. He struggles to breathe in, hitching several breaths before he feels he has enough air to justify a release, and then he repeats the process again, moaning a little on the exhale. “Steve,” he says, and it comes out fractious and terrified, a scream even though he’s scarcely achieved whisper’s volume. Steve’s grip on his wrist goes firm and Dustin is barely aware of what’s happening, except that now _everything_ is warm and he can feel Steve’s hand pressed tight and firm over the back of his neck, can feel Steve’s pulse racing against his nose, giving away how distressed he really is, and he realizes Steve is holding him, more thoroughly than he can really remember being held, except maybe when he was a very small child, before he’d even learned to lie about being scared.

He clings. He holds tight to Steve’s shirt, crawls deeper into his lap in a way that is totally undignified for someone his age, and when he feels Steve’s arms go tighter, holding him in place, he says with as much courage as he can muster, “I don’t want my mom to die.”

He breaks on a sob halfway through, can hardly get the whole sentence out for how transgressive it feels to even admit that he thinks it’s a possibility, to admit that it’s all he really thinks about when given half the chance. He can feel his heart racing in his throat, even as he chokes on spit and snot, smearing gross and degrading into Steve’s skin, because Steve is still holding onto him, not letting him go. He’s terrified and guilty and exhausted and he thinks he might be sick with the force of it, but he coughs into Steve’s neck and says again, choked and animal sounding, “I don’t want my mom to die.”

“I know, Dusty,” Steve whispers, warm and soothing.  _Exonerating._ Dustin feels Steve’s mouth move, soft and barely there against his temple. “It’s okay. I’ve got you.”

So Dustin cries, agonizing and unrelenting, ugly and desperate, like an animal shitting itself in the face of inevitable death and then scrabbling through the mess, still trying to run away. He cries, and clings, and screams until he feels raw and broken and exhausted, and he knows that, just this once, it’s okay. Because Steve is here, receiving him, forcing his hand with the sort of steadfast, ferocious empathy that only he can manage, and they both know there's no other way this can go, because Dustin may lie to everyone else, but even now, Dustin won't lie to Steve.  
  
And a little bit of honesty is exactly what he needs.  

**Author's Note:**

> Honestly, this is just a personal coping thing. That's why it's short and unpolished. But I felt the situation was applicable to the characters nevertheless.


End file.
